The Nature of God

2:1.1“Touch­ing the In­fi­nite, we can­not find him out. The di­vine foot­steps are not known.” “His un­der­stand­ing is in­fi­nite and his great­ness is un­search­able.” The blind­ing light of the Fa­ther’s pres­ence is such that to his lowly crea­tures he ap­par­ently “dwells in the thick dark­ness.” Not only are his thoughts and plans un­search­able, but “he does great and mar­velous things with­out num­ber.” “God is great; we com­pre­hend him not, nei­ther can the num­ber of his years be searched out.” “Will God in­deed dwell on the earth? Be­hold, the heaven (uni­verse) and the heaven of heav­ens (uni­verse of uni­verses) can­not con­tain him.” “How un­search­able are his judg­ments and his ways past find­ing out!”

2:1.2“There is but one God, the in­fi­nite Fa­ther, who is also a faith­ful Cre­ator.” “The di­vine Cre­ator is also the Uni­ver­sal Dis­poser, the source and des­tiny of souls. He is the Su­preme Soul, the Pri­mal Mind, and the Un­lim­ited Spirit of all cre­ation.” “The great Con­trol­ler makes no mis­takes. He is re­splen­dent in majesty and glory.” “The Cre­ator God is wholly de­void of fear and en­mity. He is im­mor­tal, eter­nal, self-ex­is­tent, di­vine, and boun­ti­ful.” “How pure and beau­ti­ful, how deep and un­fath­omable is the su­per­nal An­ces­tor of all things!” “The In­fi­nite is most ex­cel­lent in that he im­parts him­self to men. He is the be­gin­ning and the end, the Fa­ther of ev­ery good and per­fect pur­pose.” “With God all things are pos­si­ble; the eter­nal Cre­ator is the cause of causes.”

2:1.3Not­with­stand­ing the in­fin­ity of the stu­pen­dous man­i­fes­ta­tions of the Fa­ther’s eter­nal and uni­ver­sal per­son­al­ity, he is un­qual­i­fiedly self-con­scious of both his in­fin­ity and eter­nity; like­wise he knows fully his per­fec­tion and power. He is the only be­ing in the uni­verse, aside from his di­vine co-or­di­nates, who ex­pe­ri­ences a per­fect, proper, and com­plete ap­praisal of him­self.

2:1.4The Fa­ther con­stantly and un­fail­ingly meets the need of the dif­fer­en­tial of de­mand for him­self as it changes from time to time in var­i­ous sec­tions of his mas­ter uni­verse. The great God knows and un­der­stands him­self; he is in­finitely self-con­scious of all his pri­mal at­tri­butes of per­fec­tion. God is not a cos­mic ac­ci­dent; nei­ther is he a uni­verse ex­per­i­menter. The Uni­verse Sov­er­eigns may en­gage in ad­ven­ture; the Con­stel­la­tion Fa­thers may ex­per­i­ment; the sys­tem heads may prac­tice; but the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther sees the end from the be­gin­ning, and his di­vine plan and eter­nal pur­pose ac­tu­ally em­brace and com­pre­hend all the ex­per­i­ments and all the ad­ven­tures of all his sub­or­di­nates in ev­ery world, sys­tem, and con­stel­la­tion in ev­ery uni­verse of his vast do­mains.

2:1.5No thing is new to God, and no cos­mic event ever comes as a sur­prise; he in­hab­its the cir­cle of eter­nity. He is with­out be­gin­ning or end of days. To God there is no past, pres­ent, or fu­ture; all time is pres­ent at any given mo­ment. He is the great and only I AM.

2:1.6The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther is ab­so­lutely and with­out qual­i­fi­ca­tion in­fi­nite in all his at­tri­butes; and this fact, in and of it­self, au­to­mat­i­cally shuts him off from all di­rect per­sonal com­mu­ni­ca­tion with fi­nite ma­te­rial be­ings and other lowly cre­ated in­tel­li­gences.

2:1.7And all this ne­ces­si­tates such ar­range­ments for con­tact and com­mu­ni­ca­tion with his man­i­fold crea­tures as have been or­dained, first, in the per­son­al­i­ties of the Par­a­dise Sons of God, who, al­though per­fect in di­vin­ity, also of­ten par­take of the na­ture of the very flesh and blood of the plan­e­tary races, be­com­ing one of you and one with you; thus, as it were, God be­comes man, as oc­curred in the be­stowal of Mi­chael, who was called in­ter­change­ably the Son of God and the Son of Man. And sec­ond, there are the per­son­al­i­ties of the In­fi­nite Spirit, the var­i­ous or­ders of the se­raphic hosts and other ce­les­tial in­tel­li­gences who draw near to the ma­te­rial be­ings of lowly ori­gin and in so many ways min­is­ter to them and serve them. And third, there are the im­per­sonal Mys­tery Mon­i­tors, Thought Ad­justers, the ac­tual gift of the great God him­self sent to in­dwell such as the hu­mans of Uran­tia, sent with­out an­nounce­ment and with­out ex­pla­na­tion. In end­less pro­fu­sion they de­scend from the heights of glory to grace and in­dwell the hum­ble minds of those mor­tals who pos­sess the ca­pac­ity for God-con­scious­ness or the po­ten­tial there­for.

2:1.8In these ways and in many oth­ers, in ways un­known to you and ut­terly be­yond fi­nite com­pre­hen­sion, does the Par­a­dise Fa­ther lov­ingly and will­ingly down­step and oth­er­wise mod­ify, di­lute, and at­ten­u­ate his in­fin­ity in or­der that he may be able to draw nearer the fi­nite minds of his crea­ture chil­dren. And so, through a se­ries of per­son­al­ity dis­tri­bu­tions which are di­min­ish­ingly ab­so­lute, the in­fi­nite Fa­ther is en­abled to en­joy close con­tact with the di­verse in­tel­li­gences of the many realms of his far-flung uni­verse.

2:1.9All this he has done and now does, and ev­er­more will con­tinue to do, with­out in the least de­tract­ing from the fact and re­al­ity of his in­fin­ity, eter­nity, and pri­macy. And these things are ab­so­lutely true, not­with­stand­ing the dif­fi­culty of their com­pre­hen­sion, the mys­tery in which they are en­shrouded, or the im­pos­si­bil­ity of their be­ing fully un­der­stood by crea­tures such as dwell on Uran­tia.

2:1.10Be­cause the First Fa­ther is in­fi­nite in his plans and eter­nal in his pur­poses, it is in­her­ently im­pos­si­ble for any fi­nite be­ing ever to grasp or com­pre­hend these di­vine plans and pur­poses in their full­ness. Mor­tal man can glimpse the Fa­ther’s pur­poses only now and then, here and there, as they are re­vealed in re­la­tion to the out­work­ing of the plan of crea­ture as­cen­sion on its suc­ces­sive lev­els of uni­verse pro­gres­sion. Though man can­not en­com­pass the sig­nif­i­cance of in­fin­ity, the in­fi­nite Fa­ther does most cer­tainly fully com­pre­hend and lov­ingly em­brace all the fin­ity of all his chil­dren in all uni­verses.

2:1.11Di­vin­ity and eter­nity the Fa­ther shares with large num­bers of the higher Par­a­dise be­ings, but we ques­tion whether in­fin­ity and con­se­quent uni­ver­sal pri­macy is fully shared with any save his co-or­di­nate as­so­ciates of the Par­a­dise Trin­ity. In­fin­ity of per­son­al­ity must, per­force, em­brace all fini­tude of per­son­al­ity; hence the truth—lit­eral truth—of the teach­ing which de­clares that “In Him we live and move and have our be­ing.” That frag­ment of the pure De­ity of the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther which in­dwells mor­tal man is a part of the in­fin­ity of the First Great Source and Cen­ter, the Fa­ther of Fa­thers.